


They Didn't Warn Us

by maroonian (eganov), SnarkySoleil



Series: Interrogatormentors AU [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abuse, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Canon was taken out behind the shed and shot, Casteism | Hemophobia (Homestuck), Dubious Consent, Gen, General Maltreatment of Lowbloods, Generous Amount of Headcanons Enveloped Within, Illustrations, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Psychological Trauma, Stockholm Syndrome, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2019-07-13 16:43:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16021898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eganov/pseuds/maroonian, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnarkySoleil/pseuds/SnarkySoleil
Summary: Things go wrong; certain psions get taken by drones and indoctrinated into the helm, certain seadwellers decide their fates lie elsewhere only to fall down the possibly literal rabbit hole of terrible decisions, and everyone just has a generally bad time. As they always said, things get worse before they get better.The origins of two wayward trolls who left the rebellion of their friends for different reasons.Part of the Interrogatormentors series.





	1. SOLLUX: Initiation

**Author's Note:**

> this is the ao3 archive of the story events from mine (rune) and snarky's interrogatormentors au!
> 
>  
> 
> [you can find the blog for this au here](http://interrogatormentors.tumblr.com/)

TA: well ii gue22 thii2 ii2 iit guy2 the drone2 caught up two me.  
TA: 2ee you on the other 2iide.  
\-- twinArmaggedons [TA] has had their connection terminated! --

Every pawn has its place, even when it comes to trouble ships. Not every ship can go out in a blaze of starfire like the  _BC Unrelented_ who clawed its way through a Tyvalan invasion to self-destruct atop the heart of the enemy force. Not every ship can have the  _DC Oligarch’s_  honor of escorting Her Royal Condescension’s battleship through the deepest expanses of space. Some, like the  _BC Starskimmer Arisen_ , are where trolls are sent to atone.

Many ships had quirks early in their helmsman’s installment due to their individual natures, phobias of certain internal temperatures or certain planetary lifeforms included, but the  _Starskimmer_ refused taming. The battleship refused certain flight patterns, shut off water supplies for officers, transmitted unauthorized announcements over the intercom to incite confusion amongst the crew, and more. The helmsman received punishment each time. The resistance continued.

The intercom in Captain Pilthe’s quarters crackled once before the voice of a guard came through. “Sir, trouble in the brig.”

Pilthe groaned, kneading at his eyes with his palms. “If you say the word helmsman I’m scrapping that battery myself.”

A brief moment of silence fell before the guard continued. “Well, the doors won’t open, sir. Could be nothing, ’cept the lights went out and the techies say they can’t get at the helmsman neither.”

Pilthe reached out to the intercom and without any hesitation smashed it with his bare fist. The blueblood stalked to the door, shouldering it open before slamming a crewmember against the wall. “The fucking helmsman’s protecting rebels now. I want that bastard decomissioned today.” 

* * *

“Any luck getting to the helmsman or the prisoners?” Pilthe asked.

“No sir.”

“It’s been  _two days_  what the hell do you mean no fucking progress?” Pilthe dragged his hands down his face. “I didn’t sign on to play fucking siege warfare with a pissblooded battery!”

“Sir, if I can interrupt,” said a crewmember from the back. She held a tablet in her hand, eyes glued to the screen. “Brig’s been reporting near zero temperatures and lack of oxygen for a while.” She looked up then, bemusement spread across her face. “The prisoners say they’ll talk.”

Pilthe froze, but nodded slowly. “Get their intel, then. I need to file a new report.”

* * *

A week later Pilthe’s report fell onto the desk of Gafera Ritoly, head of the Alternian Interrogatormentor.

“Could be an asset,” the troll that dropped off the file said. “Don’t hear much about batteries resisting programming enough to perform professional interrogation work."

 “Thank you,” Ritoly said, and booked a trip to the  _Starskimmer_ without even reading the report. She knew already what she wanted.

* * *

“What is your name, helmsman?” Ritoly asked, hands folded behind her back. The helmsman before her seemed the only one not intimidated by her stance and Interrogatormentor-standard undercut.

“ _BC Starskimmer Arisen_ , helming code A1A100,” he said. His smirk caught on two, jagged fangs which poked outside his lip.

“Making me do all the work, Sollux Captor?” Ritoly said, head cocking to the side. She did not give the helmsman time to answer. “I read your captain’s reports. Very interesting, making those prisoners sing like little yellow featherbeasts. I have to say, you’ve caught my interest. You read my file too as I boarded, I assume.”

Sollux’s brows furrowed, mouth open just enough that the hook to reel him in would slip right in. “Yes,” he said. The cocky way he held himself had dissipated, leaving a baffled and socially useless troll with slumped shoulders. Helmsmen were so easy to read. “You’re Ritoly, of the Interrogatormentors. Look, I just did what I had to. If I didn’t clean that brig out we were just a target--”

“I don’t care,” Ritoly said. She kept her face blank, but steepled her fingers in front of her torso. “You can forget your designation code. They filed for your decommission.” Sollux’s breathing hitched almost imperceptibly, eyes widening a micromillimeter. “You’re not going with the ship, Captor. The report was brought to me to have you repurposed as an Interrogatormentor.”

Ritoly took a few steps forward, the high heels of her boots making hardly a sound on the damp floor of the helmsblock. She reached out, dragging a finely sharpened claw along the helmsman’s chin. 

 “What do you say, Sollux Captor? How badly do you want to be a troll again?”

* * *

After two perigees of physical rehabilitation, the docterrors in charge declared Sollux fit to return to the fleet. The trip to the Interrogatormentor training facility took several days, after which a burly blueblood ushered him into a small orientation room with several other trolls. Ritoly stood at the front of the room, at the shoulder of an enormous seadweller with a voice that filled the entire room.

“The Interrogatormentor program is not a desk job, brats,” the seadweller said, lip curled into a snarl. “If you want something cozy and easy go be a damn foot soldier or hell, Low Admin should shoot you right into bulge-rotting oblivion. You will refer to me as Officer Rapard.” Rapard began pacing up and down the row of trolls before him, his eyes lingering only for a moment on Sollux with his sealed biowire ports and slouch. There seemed something false and stiff about his uncontrolled aggression, as if he knew just how much to yell to intimidate. The small maroon at the end of the row definitely looked ready to shit himself.

“Many of you will die in the training regime. Oh, were you hoping to get an easy ride, recruit?” he said, leaning into one seadweller’s face. Rapard walked away, leaving the other violet to tug his collar away from his sweaty gills. “You are all hopeless without the guidance you’ll get here. We’re going to tear you to shreds and put you back together into the finest daggers of the Fleet. Half of you will die in the process. We topple rebellions-- We topple civilizations. Dismissed!”

 

* * *

“God, I hope we don’t deal with him very often,” said the little maroon, who’d introduced himself as Ualona on the way out. “Doing okay, Mercuo?”

The seadweller glowered. “As if I need your concern. He said he’s the head trainer, so get used to it.”

“Geez.”

Sollux looked around at the others in the training squad, who were mostly quiet as they entered their bunking block. A tiny olive that couldn’t be older than seven tried to pick a bunk, but was grabbed by the scruff of his uniform and tossed aside by a purple. The purple settled down, her eyes closed, but growled as another young brownblood got within a foot of her bunk.

“Thought they didn’t let wigglers into the interrogatormentors,” Sollux said, causing the olive to flush.

“I’m almost eight, excuse you.”

“Don’t worry about him, Sparkles,” said a teal, jabbing an elbow right into Sollux’s ribs and ignoring his irritable hiss. “We’re all here for a reason.”


	2. ERIDAN: Straight Flush

CA: if thats howw shits gotta be i get it  
CA: i really do  
CA: just lettin you knoww youre gonna regret this.  
CA: and by the time you realize wwhat a fuckin mistake youvve made in pushin me awway  
CA: ill be far beyond your reach  
\-- caligulasAquarium [CA] has left the memo! --

By this point in Eridan Ampora’s life, he knew space as lonely and fickle. He knew that the gaps between stars yawned millennia, and trolls at the top clawed and stabbed each other in the back at every opportunity. As a graduate of the Fleet Academy, Eridan knew this very well. What he hadn’t been prepared for was all the  _fucking paperwork_.

* * *

Eridan stared at the blinking cursor on the scheduling spreadsheet in front of him, but no matter how hard he crossed his eyes the numbers never started making sense. As a well-established Dreadnought Condescension team, the  _DC Reichenbach’s_  crew all possessed equally established habits and schedules. Needless to say they didn’t take too kindly to an uppity new Head Admin coming in and shuffling shit around.

Eridan leaned back in his chair, lifting his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. The ship had one of its usual hiccups then, the lights flaring as an energy shift took place. Wonderful. With his free hand Eridan fumbled for the intercom button. “Get back in the helm, Riesse.”

After a pause a light blinked on the callbox at Eridan’s side, indicating an incoming call. “Yo, it’s been a perigee. Use my name or I riot,” said Riesse.

“Oh, funny, I can’t see Shakes anywhere on your file Riesse.”

“C’mon.”

“No.”

“Errrridan.”

Eridan rested his head on his desk, staring at the floor as he tried to gather himself.

“Shakes. You’ve got a break from the helm tomorrow, we can’t keep usin’ antimatter engines like this. You know that the maintenance for it costs a fuckin’ fortune-”

“Mmmmyeah we can,” Riesse or Shakes or whatever the fuck that fucking brown’s name was. Eridan was tired of battling about it, but he still felt an obligation to protest. “I got shit to do with Bricks.”

“And the captain, and the Chief Intelligence Officer,” Eridan said. Further slouching caused his glasses to slip right off his nose onto the floor. “You can’t all take a break at the same time every week.”

“Yeah, we can,” said Shakes. “God, haven’t you ever heard of like, free time and social bonding? You should join us sometime. Bricks’ got a rad as hell campaign set up and Illhal said she might be transferring. We’ve got an open spot. Table’s big enough for one mooore. Loosen up, holy shit.”

Eridan hung up the call. “Uppity fuckin’ mudfucker,” he said, picking up his glasses from the floor. “Oh wow, let’s just stick a bulge in the captain, get free breaks just  _whenever_.” 

Ever since the helming techs had come out with mobile helmsman upgrades, highbloods who had quadrants with psionic lowbloods were crawling all over it. Some lowblood sympathetic fleet captains and helming techs and docterrors had written essays about the benefits of this new technology, which boasted alleged benefits such as increased helmsman longevity and better synchronization to the ship’s systems. The technology actually meant that those lowbloods with highblood quadrants were guaranteed the ability to move if their quads got their own ship and the rank of fleet captain, and it also meant that said lowbloods came with a hefty pair of globes to match.

Eridan tried to assure himself that he shouldn’t have been surprised. The Reichenbach’s captain was a piece of work to say the least, and her matesprit was such a cocky bastard with no respect for his blood superiors. As blood equals, with Captain Nekara as his superior in age and rank, Eridan kept his mouth shut to humor her smug piece of shit matesprit who jittered with ridiculous amounts of excess psionic energy.

Eridan’s palmhusk started beeping then, letting him know about breaktime, and he cast a defeated look to the stark and empty crew schedule. Normally he’d just work through his break, considering he never had other obligations. This time, he tried something new.

* * *

[Welcome to Poker Palace Server 2022A, caligulasAquarium, apocalypticTreeswing, circuitryCloser, torpidAnnihilator! Please read the rules and have fun! Currently there are 40 viewers of this game.]

AT: aw (fuck) aw beans aw no  
AT: playing with (fucking) TA??????  
CC: hhehhe get wrekt dood  
CA: wwhat  
CA: do you knoww each other  
AT: nah dude’s a (damn) bot or whatever and wins every (fucking) time  
AT: shoot i wanted to bet money on this match too  
CC: just bet on TA man  
CC: thhey’re like always online ur going to make a hHELLA profit  
AT: my pride tho  
CA: wwhat pride  
AT: DUDE :*C

Poker didn’t seem too labor intensive, especially when Eridan could theoretically still work on the schedule on the other monitor. As time progressed he instead found that the match he’d gotten roped into took all his focus after the user torpidAnnihilator wiped the floor with all of them as apocalypticTreeswing had warned. Users could stay for infinite matches, and so a rematch began.

TA won again.

And again.

Over and over TA called bluff after bluff, and unveiled hand after winning hand after intimidating everyone else, even as AT and CC left and were replaced by other users. Each user expressed dismay at seeing TA there, but something in Eridan had been awoken.

He needed to win. So he kept playing even as his break ended, eyes flicking from schedule to poker match as he continued to lose over and over. He could have fun and loosen up, totally. He just had to win first.

* * *

[Welcome to Poker Palace Server 3014C, caligulasAquarium, torpidAnnihilator, gentrificationAwaiting, corporealTone! Please read the rules and have fun! Currently there are 67 viewers of this game.]

CA: ready to lose fucker  
CA: you cant wwin forevver  
CT: ...what  
CA: do i look like im talkin to you  
GA: i mEan it’s an opEn chatroom, so  
GA: if you’rE talking to TA good luck haha,  
CA: ivve been goin at it for four perigees hes gotta lose sometime  
CT: ...lol  
GA: LOL,  
GA: i’vE bEEn playing for tEn swEEps!!  
GA: thEy don’t losE!   
CA: wwell wwere gonna see about THAT noww wwont wwe  
CA: if youvve got a penchant for believvin anyone that isnt the empress can be infallible youre sadly fuckin mistaken  
CA: one wway or another im gonna fuckin provve it and then youll eat your fuckin wwords. chumps

TA said nothing as per usual, but this silence stopped bothering Eridan long ago. He had become used to the empty silence that filled the digital lobby during games. Every muscle in Eridan’s body tensed as time went on and he focused, watching everything unfold as he kept his cards close to his virtual chest. The match concluded as it usually did, with GA and CT folding and TA refusing to show their hand. After playing this long, however, Eridan had learned to take his chances. If they needed to, TA usually folded or called a bluff second. This time they’d held onto their cards.

CA: bluff you dont havve shit  
CT: ...we both got shit hands you know hes got a good one  
CA: still callin it

With the bluff called, TA’s hand flipped over to reveal a four, two fives of separate suits, and an eight. Not necessarily a bad hand, but not a good one. The entire world stopped and Eridan felt a funny lurch in his digestive sack. He lurched to his feet, staring at the screen for a good minute.

For so many perigees, Eridan had worked towards this very moment. Each second that he stood there taking slow, shaking breaths to comprehend what had just happened felt like an eternity of downright  _euphoria_. He’d done it.

However the world, and more importantly the game, wouldn’t wait forever. He moved his shaky hands to type out the damning words.

CA: straight flush  
CA: i wwin

A silence followed, and Eridan felt so fucking giddy, like there were clouds below his feet. He hadn’t felt this good in perigees. The commenters who had been gossiping about the inevitable outcome of the match had lapsed into shock with the other players also at a loss. TA, as always, remained silent. Finally, GA and CT began to type, almost in unison.

GA: what  
CT: ...holy shit  
GA: arE you fucking serious no WAY you’rE cheating!  
CA: if this wwere anythin but an online servver i wwould be less insulted  
CA: i cant code my wway out of a wwet paper bag  
CT: ...still theres no way you couldve beaten him of all people  
CA: look a lot of this game is luck okay wwhat the fuck are you talkin about  
CA: havve you evven played poker before in your life  
TA: Huh.  
TA: Well, thII2 II2 a 2urprII2e.  
TA: ThII2 game wa2 quIIte refre2hIIng, thank you.  
CT: ...hhhhhhhooooh my god

The match closed itself then, leaving Eridan staring at his victory screen. Something about that quirk seemed familiar, but he shook the thought away. The one he’d known with that quirk had disappeared a sweep before Eridan himself had left the rebellion. He had to be dead by now. Friend requests started pinging on his poker profile as he sat there, viewers of the match itself enamored by the new champion. More than a few angry messages popped up, considering TA’s popularity in betting circles. Only one private message caught Eridan’s attention.

TA: Let me know IIf you would lIIke to play me agaIIn 2ometIIme.  
TA: II am very aware you have been 2talkIIng 2erver2 lookIIng for me and that would 2ave 2ome ha22le on your end II thIInk.  
TA: That was the mo2t fun II have had for a whIIle.  
TA: II may have two quIIt 2oon con2IIderIIng your mo2t deft humIIlIIatIIon, but fIIndIIng a new hobby II2 laborIIou2.

Eridan reread the messages at least five times to absorb just what the mysterious reigning champion of the poker ring was actually offering. There was an odd little flutter in his chest, something he’d thought he’d never feel again. Pride, and a well-earned, well deserved sense of pride at that. Acknowledgement by an ever-supreme master at a craft, even for something as little as poker, meant worlds to him. He couldn’t help the grin that crossed his face, still on a euphoric high  at the sudden turn of events.

CA: uh wwoww okay  
CA: look evveryone loses evventually unless youre hackin or wwhatevver  
CA: surprised no one else called you out  
TA: The thIIng about garnerIIng a reputatIIon IIn onlIIne communIItIIe2 II2 IIntimIIdatIIon and people fallIIng on your bulge in terror ju2t come2 wIIth the whole package.  
TA: And a2 you know, that II2 the name of the game.  
CA: i thought it wwas poker  
TA: What?  
TA: Oh, very funny.  
CA: oh my god you talk like a fuckin loser howw old are you  
TA: That II2 a very rude que2tIIon.  
TA: II wIIll 2ee you agaIIn, ErIIdan. All haIIl the Empre22.  
CA: all hail i guess

TA logged off then. Eridan continued to bask in his own victory before freezing, eyes scanning over the last few messages TA had sent.

That couldn’t be possible.

He took a moment, eyes fixed on that one sentence in the chatlog again before he flipped over to his personal profile. No, nothing there. He had made sure not to put any identifying information on his profile apart from his blood color code, which more than a few members did. His name wasn’t anywhere on the site.

Swallowing hard, Eridan closed the poker site down for now and opened this week’s schedule and maintenance logs. Only victory mattered, and he’d accomplished that. What could some random nobody on the internet do to him?

Maybe Shakes’ D&D session would be a little less nerve-wracking.


	3. SOLLUX: Double-Blind Study

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warning: some mild descriptions of torture, including blinding (so eye trauma)

Haircuts did not frighten anyone beyond the odd wiggler. No harm came from shedding a few inches, and yet Sollux balked on the threshold of the room. One of his training squad pushed him forward, towards the annoyed blueblood tapping the clippers against her wrist. “Come on, freshblood, if you’re going to call yourself an interrogatormentor you better start looking like one,” the blueblood said. “Don’t be shy.”

Sollux glanced behind him to his group, where Mercuo twirled a lock of his hair while he pouted and the olive Rosmer tucked his glasses onto the edge of his collar. Sollux took in a slow breath to calm his nerves before moving forward, sitting on the edge of the seat before the blueblood. He closed his eyes, bowing his head to bare the nape of his neck. No sane troll trusted anyone with a sharp object behind their head. 

“Nerves, I take it?” said the blueblood, getting to work shaving Sollux all the way up to the crown of his head. Sollux felt the hair falling onto his cheeks and shoulders, and he had to focus to avoid hearing engines thrumming or the smell of helming antiseptic. “Relax, helmbait. You’re not getting shredded, yet.” The clippers came close to nicking the base of Sollux’s skull, jumping over the scar where hair refused to grow. The wound had just resealed itself, healed over after they clawed open his pan for the second time to remove the helming hardware. 

 

 

* * *

Their lessons began immediately. The small block they entered next had just enough space for a desk for each of the training squad, plus a larger desk at the front. An adrogynous jade perched on the edge of the larger desk, one hand delicately placed on the table and another on their tablet as Sollux and the rest filed in.

 

 

“I am Instructor Juyure,” the jade said the moment everyone sat down. “Log into the tablets at your desk. Speaking aloud in this class without a cue will not be tolerated, so press the alert instructor button if you have questions. I will decide if it’s important enough for you to speak.”

Sollux looked at the tablet in front of him, logging into the classroom’s chatroom. He didn’t need a lecture to know he liked interfacing through a chat program better than speaking. The chatroom soon filled up with the other members of his squad.

[Welcome to training, twinArmaggedons [TA], glorifiedCorpsification [GC], chronicAcademician [CA], actualizedClairvoyant [AC], catigatedTrepidation [CT], cavortingGratuity [CG], accentuatedAntimony [AA]!]

Sollux felt quite comfortable multitasking, and so started exploring the tablet’s capabilities as the jade began their lesson. He felt a funny pang on seeing some of the usertags, eyes lingering over AA. He shook his head to clear it. Whatever those memories meant, helming had eliminated their usefulness. Life began afresh in the helm. While he wanted to get out of here, he had to play the part of interrogatormentor for now. The instructors had already proven themselves capable of reading him like an open book.

A video opened up unbidden on the tablet then, taking over half the screen while the chat continued scrolling off to the side. “Our first lesson will be on the senses,” Juyure said, pulling on a metallic black glove. Their pinky finger twitched, folding in towards their palm. On the video, a greenblood bound in a chair jerked as a visor folded itself across his face. After some smoking beneath the visor, the troll’s face was exposed again to reveal ruined red eyes. “What can you gain by depriving a troll of their sight? Respond on your tablet.”

CG: a blind Troll can’T fighT againsT You righT?  
AC: no s-| |-it genius and i said you can’t be watc-| |-ed while you prep.  
AA: but a 7roll wi7hou7 one of 7heir senses amplifies 7he res7 righ7?  
TA: ii mean lo22 of control play2 iin ii thiink.  
TA: the iin2tructor can’t 2ee the chat riight?  
GC: *I put in my answeR.*  
CA: gee what wOOuld we dOO withOOut that live update!!  
CA: i panicked and just said cOOnfusiOOn… O3<

Juyure sniffed, an echo of irritation as they flicked their wrist. Rosmer yelped and whipped his hands from his tablet in unison with Mercuo. The purple, Ophlia, gritted her teeth and let go of her own tablet. Sollux glanced over at those three, raising his eyebrows. 

 

 

 

 

TA: you guy2 good?  
CA: I gOOT zapped!! OoO  
GC: *Thanks for the updatE.*  
CA: o^o  
GC: *This encourages competition and tests our reactionS.*  
TA: wow 2mart an2wer from 2omeone who fuckiing biiffed iit.

Sollux looked up to see Ophlia glaring at him and buried himself back in his tablet. The lesson continued then, with a sense of the bound troll in the video getting eliminated with each twitch of the instructor’s glove. Sollux only earned a shock twice throughout the lesson, with his fellows averaging about three shocks each with the exception of the brownblooded Zesaim. The whole affair ended with the bound greenblood slumped in his seat, red eyes staring up at the sky and without a single movement to indicate if he still lived.

 

 

* * *

The next hour found the group clustered in the mess hall, devouring their rations with enthusiasm. “Well, that was something,” Rosmer said, not even bothered by the gruesome nature of the training video they’d been shown. “That actor knew how to squirm!”

“Are you kidding me?” Sollux said, looking over to the olive. He’d continued poking around the tablet since the lesson, holding the tablet with one hand and his eating utensil in his other. “That was a live feed from a brig channel, genius.”

Rosmer swallowed, shoulders hunching as he went back to his meal. He mumbled something about scientific interest, and Zesaim patted at his shoulder. 

Sollux rolled his eyes, and then grimaced as Trisia slurped down an entire grubsteak without chewing. “Can you fucking not?”

“What, it’s good!” Trisia said. “We get to eat like highbloods here.”

“If you think this is what highbloods eat, you’re more of an idiot than I thought,” Mercuo said, lips curled up into a sneer. “This is trash.”

“Complain to me when you get nutrients pumped right into your acidic digestive pouch,” Sollux said, rolling his eyes. “Spoiled fucking wader.”

Mercuo snarled, standing up as he slammed his hands onto the table only to get shoved underneath the table by an irritated Ophlia. Ualona looked over to Sollux, eyes round. “Is that how helmsman really eat?” he said. “Was it really that bad?”

Sollux huffed, looking back down to his tablet. “It doesn’t matter, does it? We all eat the same shit now and the highbloods will get to eat better again once they graduate.” 

“It’s probably not going to be any good unless you’re on a dreadnought like the _DC Reichenbach_ or something,” Mercuo said then, emerging from underneath the table. 

“You wish you could get on the _Reichenbach_ ,” Trisia said.

“Come on, it’s only the admin positions that are closed up,” Mercuo said. “I came to the interrogatormentors because of that, actually. The Head Admin’s not going anywhere anytime soon. I heard he just got named Imperial Consort to the Empress.”

 

 

 

 

Zesaim pushed around some food with her fork. “That seems odd, and also fake. The Empress doesn’t take consorts anymore.”

Ualona laughed. “Yeah, she’s too busy fucking around with her Helmsman. I heard he’d lick her feet if he could bend below the waist. I kept getting kicked out of the helming channels, though.”

“Because you’re not a helmsman,” Sollux said. He leaned forward then. “From what I heard it’s just rumors, but why else would the _Reichenbach_ dock with the _BC Condescension_ all the time? The _Reichenbach’s_ helmsman is a fucking gossipy snitch but he’s reliable.”

“Do you know anything else? I don’t want to deny Mercuo his black wiggly,” Trisia said, elbowing Mercuo in the ribs.

“I do not have a wiggly for him, pitch or not,” Mercuo said with a hiss. “Look, he’s just some nobody and it’s his cushy ship job I’m after. No one cares about Eridan Ampora.”


	4. ERIDAN: Tech Support

The next perigee on the Reichenbach passed without incident. Despite his apprehension over TA’s namedrop, Eridan chalked it up to a lucky guess so he could sleep during the day. He’d mentioned admin duties before, and all high-ranking officials were announced publicly on the Imperial Network. That’s all it was-- a lucky guess. Eridan played a few more poker games, some with TA and some without, and the other troll never made mention of the incident. Besides, TA had closed their private messages again, so asking anything in a private server would look suspicious. **  
**

* * *

Tonight, however, seemed determined to fuck Eridan sideways up the chute with a leaf-apportioning device. “What do you mean we have to dock, Bricks? We just started flying,” he said. He hadn’t slept the entire day before, instead spending the light hours arguing with the acquisitions officer about new crew intake.  

“Shakes’ got a headache,” Bricks said. He didn’t even look up from where he tinkered with an open panel on the wall.

Eridan let out a high pitched snort, taking another drag from his coffee thermos. “Of course he does. What’s the fuckin’ excuse this time?”

Bricks stepped back and turned his head, his eyebrows an unimpressed line. “The psionic oscillator’s crapped out, just like I told you. Make the little bastard fly without that and his pan’s gonna turn inside out and explode.” He turned back to the wall. “Stop at the next moon and order the part.”

Eridan inhaled through his nose before he replied, but all he could come up with was a shrill tea-kettle hiss through his teeth. His grip on his thermos loosened, the cup falling from his hand to drop and send lukewarm coffee splashing up and onto the engineer and his work. Ignoring Bricks’ angry snap of “Hey, it’s not  _my_ fault you wouldn’t order the part,” Eridan made a u-turn right back to his blocks.

Once he reached his quarters Eridan snatched up a mug, swearing under his breath as he poured himself another cup from the waiting carafe. The mug only filled halfway so Eridan turned, raiding his shelves for an aged soporific given to him by the captain to welcome him to the ship. He opened the bottle without fanfare, filling the mug to the point excess liquid slopped over the rim. “It’s not my fuckin’ fault,” Eridan said, plopping down into his desk chair. He jabbed at the power button, leaning back. “Bet the little bastard junked it himself so he could get outta helmin’ or whatever. Fuckin’ nookhuffin’ punk.”

For a moment Eridan hovered over his admin email account, but instead directed his cursor towards a familiar bookmark. He didn’t want to swallow his pride and order the part yet.

[Welcome to Poker Palace Server 1023B, caligulasAquarium, torpidAnnihilator, ancientTrickery, actualizedClairvoyant! Please read the rules and have fun! Currently there are 32 viewers of this game.]

AT: uh juy time tu die i guess gl yuu twu  
CA: yo ta open your messages  
CA: i need to talk to you   
AC: oh come on i didnt -| |-ack my way out -| |-ere for a junk game just play  
AT: lul did yuur lusus bluck this website   
AC: sh-| |-ut the -| |-ell your mout-| |-  
[torpidAnnihilator has left the server! This game will now close.]

Eridan cursed, taking a drink and coughing past the burn in the back of his throat. Despite his irritation at being blown off his computer pinged, alerting him to a Trollian message.

[torphidAnnhilator [TA] began trolling caligulasAquarium [CA]!]

TA: ThII2 II2 calIIgula2AquarIIum 6a006a from poker palace correct?  
CA: oh my fuckin god  
CA: are you stalkin me or somethin noww come on  
TA: How the hypocrIIte crIIe2 now he’2 been caught.  
TA: You wanted two 2peak two me, you u2e the 2ame u2ername for your prIIvate account, and have an IIdentIIcal hemocode.  
TA: Now what wa2 2o IImportant you needed two 2peak two me about IIt?  
CA: uh

Eridan hesitated, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth. The action rewarded him with the iron tang of blood, which he ignored as he resumed typing.

CA: nothin important i guess  
TA: Oh, good.  
TA: Goodbye.  
CA: can you just chill for twwo seconds you absolute bastard wwoww  
CA: idvve nevver pinned you a flight risk but here wwe are  
CA: lets hope youre not in a position to ditch the empire itd be a damn shame to lose such a brillian poker player to the clawws of rebellion  
CA: but ill be real here i just needed to vvent  
CA: thought i wwas finally gettin through to some of these fuckin plebians about howw to run a ship  
CA: i forget to order one fuckin psionic oscillator or WWHATEVVER fuckin jargon theyre throwwin around like corpse party confetti cannons and theyre all up in arms about howw im tearin this ship apart  
TA: 2ound2 lIIke a per2onal problem.  
CA: wwoww thanks ta i kneww i could count on you  
CA: i appreciate you bein honest wwith me buddy you talk like you play  
CA: cuttin no corners expenses or livves  
TA: IIf you are quIIte done, you 2hould know they are all overreactIIng.  
TA: P2IIonIIc o2cIIlator2 are a crutch u2ed by lazy techIIe2 that do not 2pend tIIme IIn2tallIIng 2IImple mechanII2m2 two fa2cIIlIItate energy tran2fer.  
CA: can you rephrase that in alternian  
CA: god youre a helmin tech or jus one of those wweirdos wwho constantly oogles ovver helmin arent you  
TA: Here, run thII2.

That phrase in that particular quirk definitely gave Eridan some unpleasant flashbacks of throwing a blazing computer out his window into the sea. A file appeared in the chat window, an innocuous “fileone.exe,” which did not help matters.

CA: oh cool wwhat a descriptivve and unsuspicious file you havve givven me  
CA: id preface this wwith some actual invvestigation into wwhat your relationship to the empire is  
CA: HOWWEVVER  
CA: i dont havve the luxury of that time considerin that if i dont do this im goin to get shouted to oblivvion for havvin such a gross ovversight  
CA: i WWILL on the other hand ask wwhat youre tryin to pull here ta  
TA: IIf II wanted two harm your 2y2tem IIn any way II could have already done so.  
TA: Perhap2 IIf you 2topped drIInkIIng 2o much that would help your mental clarIIty.

Eridan reached off to the side, pulling a discarded pair of boxers from the hamper off to the side of his ‘coon-adjacent desk, and covered up his webcam.

TA: Ah, thank you, II hate thII2 actually.  
CA: i fuckin kneww it you creep  
CA: look if i run this garbage wwill you quit stalkin me  
TA: The wIIde-lIIpped cookIIng ve22el II2 callIIng the enclo2ed waterboIIlIIng receptacle black, but 2ure IIf you 2ay 2o.  
CA: just fuckin say pot and kettle im not in the mood for lowwblooded vvernacular causin a shitload of tonguetwwisters  
TA: You’ll need your helm2man two plug IIn for the program two functIIon properly.

Eridan eyed the file one last time before reaching for the intercom, dialing up the location he last saw Bricks in. “Hey, Bricks. Plug Shakes in.”

 After some silence, Bricks responded. “Hell no. Go get some fuckin’ sleep and then talk to me. You’re slurring like a lush.”

Eridan raised his glasses up, rubbing at the imprints left behind on his nose. “Just do it, Bricks, or I’ll have you fuckin’ court-marshaled or whatever they do to engineers.”

“Throw us out the airlock, usually,” Bricks said. He sighed, his breath rattling over the intercom. “Fine.”

Eridan waited, finger poised over the enter key to run the file until Bricks let him know Shakes was up in the helming harness. “Okay, he’s in,” Bricks said, and Eridan ran the program with his eyes screwed shut.

Nothing happened.

Eridan waited with breath held tight to his chest, and only when his torso gills started to flare in protest under his uniform did he dare to relax. He reached for the intercom, only to be interrupted by an excited shout from Shakes.

“Ooooooh my god what the fuck did you do, Ampora, I feel like a fucking laser-charged kid’s toy let me fly come on Bricks let me fly I’m going to take us to the fucking Spyttick system holy shit!”

Eridan tipped his head back to rest against the back of his desk, groping blindly to grab his coffee-soporific abomination. He drank the rest down in one go before lolling his head back down to look at his computer screen.

TA: DIId you run IIt?

Eridan set down his mug, scrubbing at his jaw before replying.

CA: yeah  
CA: got it in one you fuckin freak of nature i didnt expect you to actually help  
CA: howw the FUCK did you do that i havvent seen codin expertise like that in eons  
CA: and most certainly not from me ill assure you of that noww i dont knoww wwhat that exe thing had shovved into it but you wworked fuckin miracles  
CA: wwhore you anywways  
TA: Excu2e me?  
CA: wwho ARE you you illiterate pleb  
TA: You aren’t allowed two u2e the 2ame IIn2ult twIIce.  
CA: look can wwe not do this roundabout bullshittery wwhere it takes me like ten perigees to learn the answwer just from howw outright  elusivve as fuck you tend to be just tell me im dyin here im hangin on tenterhooks like a fuckin chub some wwiggler hooked in a dinghy  
TA: II am nobody IImportant.  
TA: Ju2t a Helm2man.


	5. SOLLUX: Wipeout

After a week of lessons, Sollux started getting used to the routine of interrogatormentor training. He slept a day on a rigid platform, ate, went through some sort of unsettling lesson, showered off, ate again, and then fucked around on his tablet until Instructor Rapard called for lights out. The lessons weren’t even that bad, considering live subjects weren’t used again.

Yesterday’s sleep, however, just didn’t happen. A half hour into the day a low drone started sounding from somewhere up in the corner behind Sollux. No one said anything at first, although Zesaim started up a steady whine somewhere across the room that matched the noise in perfect frequency until someone threw a pillow at her.

Sollux finally lost patience after a while, and decided to upend Mercuo to investigate near the ceiling, the seadweller giving only a half-hearted “ _Hey_!” before giving up and scooting against the edge of the bunk. Not that Sollux had actually disturbed Mercuo much anyways, considering that he had only been sitting there and holding a pillow to his head, irritable and exhausted. Sollux smoothed his hands over the wall, occasionally tapping with his knuckles with a soft spark of psionics. Someone huffed as the platform creaked behind Sollux, and he glanced back to see the teal inexplicably draped between the ledges of the bunks.

 “What’cha got, Sparkles?” asked Trisia, yawning. “You blow a fuse?”

“Probably,” Sollux said, still tapping away. He knew how machinery made walls sound and feel, no matter how small the hollows for them were. Having awareness of every rattling inch of a battleship did that to a troll. The brick walls made things difficult, but eventually he came to a spot that seemed off. The sound of his hand against the brick didn’t change, but his psionics fluttered under his direction. _Radiation._ “Okay, got it. They buried a… I don’t know, some sort of speaker in here.”

“They?” Rosmer sounded near-tears.

“The instructors.” Sollux pressed his palm flat up against the brick, trying to reach as deep as he could with psionic senses. He needed to make the noise stop or none of them would sleep. “This wasn’t accidental.”

* * *

 

Instructor Rapard escorted the groggy squad to a new location the next evening, as alert and razor-sharp as always. Bastard. “Bad day to fail a test, recruits,” he said, fin flicking once as Sollux yawned behind him. “As interrogatormentors, you have no leisure of a warm recuperacoon waiting for you at the end of the night. You need to withstand anything and everything.” Rapard stopped by a tall set of double-doors, turning and facing them all. “I leave you with Instructor Pozoia.”

The room they entered was a gym, with a vaulted ceiling and various pieces of exercise equipment littered around a long pool. As they entered a cerulean with a shattered horn and two robotic limbs tapped a tablet, and a screen at the far end of the room flickered to life. Each of the training squad’s names appeared there, with three white boxes alongside each name.

“Welcome to physical endurance training,” said the instructor, with the faintest hint of a drawl. “Get to station. Psions--” Pozoia reached down before flinging three metal rings out to each of the psionic trolls. The ring managed to hit Sollux square in the forehead, while Ualona and Zesaim both managed to catch theirs. “--y’all get inhibitors. Cheating with psionics earns you an instant fail for today.”

Sollux rubbed his forehead, before clasping the inhibitor around his wrist. With that the familiar thrum of psionics under his skin vanished, along with the whispers of the doomed swimming around his ears. He felt naked without them.

Mercuo, meanwhile, shoved Rosmer out of the way as he made his way to the pool. “Go ahead, wiggler,” Instructor Pozoia said, an echo of a smirk around his lips. His eyes remained cold and emotionless. “Water’s laced with neurotoxin. Have fun with that up in those gills.” Mercuo wilted, but turned instead to a climbing wall. Pozoia turned his eyes to Sollux next. “You get the pool. Strip and swim, grub.” Sollux opened his mouth to protest, but Pozoia tapped his tablet. A buzzer sounded, and a red X appeared in one of the boxes up on the screen on the wall. “Three strikes and you’re gargling that, recruit.”

Sollux bit his tongue, but tore off his shirt and dropped it on the ground. Once he only wore his boxers he slipped into the pool, taking great care to keep his head above water. Thankfully, the uniform tailors seemed to have taken potential water-dunking into account with their underwear design, which made the swim more pleasant. All the same Sollux struggled, paddling like a woofbeast at best. Pozoia stalked along the poolside for a while, before moving on to go harangue a wheezing Rosmer on an elliptical.

Over the next hour Sollux felt himself dipping lower and lower in the water, the poisonous water splashing up over his mouth. Sollux kept his lips clamped shut, but he knew he couldn’t sustain this pace for long with how exhausted he was. Every fifteen minutes another buzzer sounded, allowing them a break for a minute. By the half hour mark all of them had at least one X next to their name, except for Ophlia who bounced on the balls of her feet next to a punching bag through every break.

The third break saw Sollux clinging onto the side of the pool, rasping for air. Even the fumes from the pool made him dizzy now, and his arms ached. When the minute break ended everyone got back to their exercise, except Ualona who remained kneeling with his head bowed. Sollux kept swimming, but kept watching with every lap as Pozoia came up to Ualona. After some repeated attempts to get the maroon back on the bike the instructor planted a foot in Ualona chest, shoving him onto his back. “Fail, Ualona. You report to me instead of Juyure until you last the hour.” A few of the others had paused in their exercises, and Pozoia’s lip twitched. “The rest of you are coming back in two nights, so don’t get lazy now. Get back to work.”

 

Once endurance training finished, Sollux rested his head against the tiled wall of the ablutionblock as warm water washed over him. No one cared about the communal showers by this point, too exhausted to care as they tried to soothe their aching muscles. Sollux had barely made it out of the gym, wobbling like a newborn antlerbeast. He made sure to scrub his face down, combing his fingers through what was left of his hair to make sure none of the poisoned water remained behind.

He jumped as someone poked at his arm, and he bared his teeth at Rosmer who squinted at him without his round glasses. “How hot can your psionics go?”

“The fuck,” Sollux said, still pressing his cheek into the wall.

“No, seriously. Can you sustain a good, I don’t know, good 350 through glass, you think?” Rosmer said. “On oil though, not the flames themselves, that’s just silly.”

“Can you maybe wait, RM?” Sollux said, groaning a bit as he slipped a bit lower down the wall. “I’m trying to drown myself so I don’t have to do that training again.”

“Don’t do that, I need you!” Rosmer said, quite earnest with his eyes widening. He lowered his voice then, looking over to where Ualona slumped under a showerhead while Ophlia scrubbed his hair with cruel efficiency. “I wanted to bake something for Ualona to cheer him up, you know, because he failed! So I thought they probably have food preparation blocks, and those have ingredients, but they won’t let recruits do some baking probably. But uh, well, baking’s just chemistry you get to eat so I thought if I got a receptacle, I could get something small for him if I just had a heat source. So how hot are you?”

“Asking someone that when they’re naked’s kind of rude,” Sollux said, pushing himself off the wall.

“What?”

“Nothing, RM.”

* * *

 

The brownie-in-a-beaker the two of them came up with wouldn’t win any awards once they finished, but Ualona just about cried after receiving it. “I don’t deserve this,” he said, wiping snot off the end of his nose. “I fucked up today. I fucked up so bad and I have to keep going.” He reached into the beaker with bare hands, scooping up some of the brownie and shoving it into his mouth. He sniffled again. “Thanks, Captor.”

“Wasn’t my idea,” Sollux said, shrugging. “We all thought you looked pretty fucking pathetic, though.”

Ualona let out a wet laugh, turning his head away to wipe away his tears. “I don’t deserve to die. Please, don’t let me die.” His voice sounded odd, distant, like it came through a tunnel.

“What?” Sollux grabbed Ualona’s shoulder, forcing them to make eye contact. “You’re not going to die from a few shitty exercises.”

“What? No, of course not. I’m not stupid,” Ualona said. He took another bite of the brownie. “You should get some sleep before the noise goes off, though.”

Sollux dropped his hand, brow furrowing, before he stood up and went to his own bunk. If Ualona wanted to try and save face, that wasn’t his problem. Still, he couldn’t help the way his stomach twisted up as he replayed how Ualona had sounded in his head. The shrill noise started up soon afterwards though, driving his worry into a corner and replacing it with vague annoyance. Sleep followed a few hours later.

 


	6. ERIDAN: Golden Infidel

After perigees of trial and error, Eridan finally felt he’d gotten a handle on Head Admin duties. The stress never decreased, and more often than not Eridan found himself reaching for a drink at the end of the day to take the edge off, but having someone at the end of the worknight to talk to helped more than Eridan cared to admit. No matter the time, no matter what far reaches of space the _Reichenbach_ found itself in, TA responded to each of Eridan’s various messages. Eridan had to wonder if TA actually liked talking to him, or if the capital-H-Helmsman was just bored. God, the idea that he may actually have stumbled onto the Imperial Helmsman, a veritable wiggler-tale creature, terrified Eridan to no end.

Still, he’d take support wherever he could get it, and right now he had bigger fish to fry. As Head Admin, he took responsibility for organizing any and all docking requests, maintenance queues, and inventory logging. The task weighing down his shoulders at the moment took the form of a simple email in his account which had exploded into a lurid, glittery graphic whose symbol seared itself into his eyelids.

“By decree of Her Imperial Condescension, Empress of the Alternian Empire, your ship is formally ordered to attend mandatory Fleet Inspection event. Ships of the invited will go through rigorous examination, while crews are encouraged to mingle aboard the _HBC Condescension._ Coordinates attached. This message designed and approved by the Department of Imperial Public Affairs.”

A computer generated tyrian-pink lipstick kiss signed the bottom of the invite or order or whatever this abomination of color actually was, along with the sign of the Empress herself. Eridan had tried to find an explanation for the sudden Fleet inspection as he scurried over the entire _Reichenbach_ getting everything in order, and found none. Whisperings of rebellion crawled through the empire, but none of the rumors possessed any substance. They never mentioned names, and no descriptions of a certain secret heiress ever reached Eridan. Despite their tempestuous parting, Eridan couldn’t bring himself to look forward to Feferi’s inevitable culling once she finally surfaced.

Rebellions didn’t matter. Trolls didn’t matter. Only the health and safety of the _Reichenbach_ mattered, and Eridan finally managed to get everything in its proper place by the time of the inspection. Even with the stress of the event, perhaps he could even make some connections aboard the _HBC Condescension_ to make his life easier.

* * *

Two hours into the event, and Eridan had spoken to approximately two trolls, who spoke to him more out of a respect to his caste than to his actual position. This fact insulted him more than anything, considering how much time he’d spent taming his hair back and moisturizing. “So you weren’t expectin’ an inspection either, huh?”

The teal next to him wrinkled her nose. “You can say that. My bet’s on the Empress looking for rebellion ties. Why else would she call back an interrogatormentor ship?”

Eridan covered up his apprehension by taking a nervous sip from his drink. He’d noticed the interrogatormentors too-- a cerulean and an enormous seadweller cutting their way through the crowd in silent tandem. “Any ships in range got called back. They ain’t special.” His eyes met the cerulean’s, and his acidic digestive pouch twisted up in six different knots. “You think they’re lookin’ for rebels? In the fleet? Maybe you got a few flirtin’ with the idea in wigglerhood, but they’d be stupid to think rebels actually care about anybody past Ascension.” His lip twisted up into a half-snarl before he schooled his face back.

The teal laughed. “I like you. It’s too bad that naivety’s going to get slammed right out of you. What’d you say your name was?”

Eridan’s eyes hadn’t left the pair of interrogatormentors, who’d started to move towards them as casually as two sharks circling a baby dolphin. “I’m gonna get some air,” he said, ignoring the other troll’s derisive remark about recycled ship air.

The invitation to mingle aboard the Empress’ Imperial Battleship hadn’t explicitly forbidden wandering around, but Eridan couldn’t help but check over his shoulder every few seconds all the same. The interrogatormentors hadn’t followed him out either. Eridan tried to reassure himself that he needn’t worry about them. He had nothing to hide. Any ties to a rebellion now had severed themselves sweeps ago, and he harbored no treasonous leanings now. If they asked him anything, he could say with confidence he didn’t know what the rebellion was planning or who led the charge. Feferi’s name didn’t need to come up. So why did he feel so terrified of the prospect of investigation?

Eridan didn’t meet any other trolls as he wandered further and further, the walls losing their ornamental gilding and becoming more utilitarian as he walked on. The _HBC Condescension_ had started out as nothing more than a personal cruiser according to legends, building itself up into elaborate palace halls around the ancient helmsman at the core.

Eridan jumped as he heard something up ahead of him, fins swiveling in an attempt to pinpoint the noise. He crept around the corner, still holding his drink glass in a shaking hand. It sounded like someone spoke off in the distance, a drone that almost held a melody in words he couldn’t quite parse. As Eridan walked onward, the sound became more distinct but no less identifiable as actual words. Eridan’s brow furrowed as he heard a word he almost understood, until it clicked.

As a devotee to history, especially military tactics, Eridan had amassed more than his fair share of old books and scrolls. At one point, Alternia had had two main languages, High and Low, with the Low comprised of dozens of lowblooded tongues all mashed together in the enslaved warm population. Over time High had become Common, with only a few dialects surviving while Low had faded away with time. Eridan had only seen Old Low Alternian written down once, in an ancient tome bound in clawbeast skin that he still hadn’t fully translated by the time he joined the Fleet. But he knew those words, written down in a column of shaky letters in a section of heretical hymns, although he’d never imagined he’d hear them sung aloud.

_“He carries all our pain_   
_And one day his strife is forgotten_   
_However, we are forgiven.”_

Eridan knew at this point, he’d gone too far into the ship. If someone spotted him at this point, he’d earn a trip to the interrogatormentor’s brig regardless of rebel ties, and yet he found himself entranced as he kept going. It took him time to translate the words in his head, but the process made itself easier as the disembodied singer repeated the droning mantra like a prayer, over and over. Eridan closed his eyes as he walked, picturing the words in front of his head, sounding them out and pairing them with the sounds he heard.

_“Our kin are separated by color of blood._   
_We are without love or virtue._   
_However, we are forgiven.”_

Eridan opened his eyes just in time to stop in front of a door, its frame reinforced in the characteristic manner of a helmsblock to seal moisture in to preserve biowires and living tissue. Eridan swallowed hard, grip tightening so hard on his glass he heard the glass creak. All highblood dinnerware needed reinforcement, but his apprehension definitely put the construction to the test. Despite every instinct screaming at Eridan to back away, to walk right back to the gathering of disgruntled ship captains and crew, Eridan placed his palm on the door’s scanner. The door opened.

The smell hit Eridan first, rotting flesh and damp that nearly had him retching as he looked up at the tangle of wires and remnant of troll strung up in the helming harness. The source of the song came from above, speakers connecting the Helmsman to the ship. Eridan couldn’t find a sign of life in the old psion’s face, silver-streaked hair hanging over his red and blue eyes glazed over like a corpse. Eridan wondered if the battery even had arms and legs at this point, considering the black, necrotic tissue creeping down from the forearms completely hidden in a snarl of devouring biowires.

As Eridan stood there, transfixed in horror and disgust, the speakers’ volume started to dim. The Helmsman stirred, head slowly rising from its slumped position as his lips began to sound out silent syllables. Over the next few seconds he managed to speak up, the speakers going silent as the Helmsman took over the song with a voice like shards of glass scraping up against each other. The psion blinked, first with his blue eye and then his right, and it took a few tries to blink moisture into his eyes like a normal troll. He stopped singing, and spoke.

“You took your time, Eridan.” The Helmsman took a heaving breath, and Eridan swore he could hear the creaking of his lungs. “Ah, I forgot how much I hate this meat sack.”

Eridan set down his glass on a console, swallowing back the bile rising in his throat. Despite the smell and the disgusting sight, he felt a twinge of something akin to pity in the back of his head. This really was the troll he’d played poker with and talked to for these past few perigees. “You were expectin’ me? Surprised you got two pan-cells to scrape together, lookin’ like that.”

The Helmsman laughed, a horrific grating sound that trailed off into wet coughs. “As am I,” he said, choking a bit. Yellow blood dribbled down his chin, and a biowire snaked across his face to clear it. “I asked for you. It was an idle request, but the Empress continues to surprise me in her benevolence.”

Eridan squinted at the Helmsman. “Seems like the most benevolent thing for you is a funeral pyre. Why’d you wanna see me?”

The Helmsman closed his eyes. “I do not want to die,” he said, and something about the strained tone to his voice didn’t ring as true. “I get to see the stars. I have been blessed with eternity and power beyond comprehension. But it is lonely, here. Speaking to someone, to you, has reminded me of this.”

Eridan felt his hand lifting outside his control, until he made contact with the decrepit troll’s cheek with a damp _pap._ He rotated his hand before the gesture could get misconstrued, grasping the old troll’s jaw as he looked him over. The Helmsman’s skin felt like damp sandpaper, threatening to flake off and peel away at any moment. “Hey. I mean, I ain’t anythin’ special, but if you’re lonely I could stick around for a bit. I don’t think anyone’s gonna miss me for a bit. What was that song you were singin’ about, anyways?”

The Helmsman managed to open his eyes again, lips parting to speak. He looked behind Eridan’s shoulder, and his eyes went round just in time for someone else to announce themselves.

“Singing for your new buoy-toy already, battery?” The voice sent chills down Eridan’s spine, and he stayed frozen with his hand on the Helmsman’s face. “Hope you don’t mind bein’ an object lesson, guppy.”

A cool hand touched down on Eridan’s shoulder, and he glanced off to the side just long enough to see long, tyrian-painted nails that popped against the myriad of golden rings adorning the hand of none other than the Empress herself. He tried to come up with an explanation, a plea, anything, but gasped instead as the prongs of a golden trident pierced through him. An instinctive shriek of pain caught in his throat, his entire being paralyzed by pain he’d never experienced before.

He choked on his own blood as the trident lifted, sweeping him off his feet and tearing through his gut as the Empress lifted him with ease. As his vision went black Eridan remembered hunting freshwater shallows with Feferi, pulling crayfish from their murky dens and impaling them on his fingers. He’d watched them squirm, antennae wriggling and legs kicking as if they had any hope of surviving before popping them into his mouth and crunching through their chitinous shells with his teeth. Eridan’s right leg spasmed, kicking out once, and he saw nothing more.


	7. SOLLUX: Freezer Burn

Sleep came in fits and starts for the trainees, but they all snatched what little they could as their training continued. Despite this, they all spent the scant hour of free time the instructors allotted them in different ways. Zesaim studied, scouring books whose origins she refused to reveal for interrogation techniques. Rosmer baked in beakers, often coercing Sollux into using his psionics as a heat source. Ophlia worked out, Trisia ever by her side. Sollux himself dozed as he idly explored the limitations of his tablet, poking holes in the security to try and get his nose out for some news. Ualona often joined him, his maroon text a constant in the chat channels.

 

\-- actualizedClairvoyant [AC] has begun trolling twinArmageddons [TA]! \--

AC: any progress on protecting a c-| |-annel?  
AC: avoiding mics is cool and all but w-| |-at if t-| |-ey are monitoring everyt-| |-ing we type?  
TA: no progre22  
TA: they’re reportiing all thii2 2hiit two the empiire and the drone2ll be here iin liike two hour2  
AC: D:  
TA: who do you fuckiing take me for you fuckiing knuckle2ponge ii’ve coded liike fiive proxiie2 iin the la2t ten miinute2 alone.  
AC: -| |-ell yeah!  
AC: so can you send me t-| |-at new installment of sunspots and starship -| |-eresy you found on the net t-| |-en because i kind of need somet-| |-ing to take my mind off tomorrow’s private training  
AC: its gonna be some INTENSE friggin quizzes  
TA: god ii don’t want two enable you gettiing your globe2 off two helmiing porn you know that riight.  
AC: i mean  
AC: w-| |-en you put it t-| |-at way…  
TA: w/e iidgaf

-twinArmaggedons [TA] has sent file [kiinkyba2tard.xml]!-

TA: porn ii2n’t trea2on anyway we don’t need protected channel2 for that.  
TA: 2o who’2 goiing two be your traiiner tomorrow niight??  
AC: that pozoia guy that oversees the p-| |-ysical training :[  
AC: im freaking out!! -| |-es going to eat me alive!  
AC: w-| |-at about you?  
TA: rapard.  
AC: O-| |- S-| |-IT  
TA: w/e  
TA: he doe2n’t 2care me.

* * *

 

The next night when the morning alarms went off, however, Sollux hesitated as he squinted at his schedule for the day.

 

Sollux Captor: Report at Training Block A13 - Rapard - Dress Code: Swimwear

 

“Swimwear?” Zesaim’s puzzled voice came from her bunk just as Sollux read the words on his own schedule, and he looked over. “What happened to quizzes?”

“I don’t see how having a personal trainer’s going to help us swim better,” Sollux said, sitting up on the platform. “God, I don’t give a shit if I have to chase a wader through open sea, I’m drowning regardless.” He ducked, just in time to avoid a pillow getting thrown at him by Mercuo at terminal velocity. The seadweller glared at him from his bunk.

“You’ll need the fucking practice if you don’t want me to drown you,” Mercuo said, climbing down from his own bunk.

Sollux snorted, flicking Mercuo’s fin once with his psionics before stripping down. They filtered out to their assigned blocks after that, and it seemed the coolbloods didn’t receive any alteration to their dress codes for the day. Sollux found walking alone to a lesson disconcerting, and the halls seemed so much chillier and ominously dark without someone at his side. The faint fizzle of the lights above him served as the only background sound apart from the faint paps of his own bare feet on the metal tile.

He stopped in front of block A13 after a few minutes, looking up at the door. The metal seemed thick and reinforced, and a card reader sat adjacent to the heavy handle. A hand reached past Sollux, sliding a card into the reader and causing Sollux to jump. He hadn’t heard Rapard coming. “Quit flinching, helmbait,” Rapard said, hauling the door open. The door hissed, steam rushing out of the dark block in a billowing cloud. Sollux took a step, paused, and then moved forward only after Rapard shot him an unimpressed look.

The cold had given Sollux pause, an almost physical wall of frigid air that only intensified as the door behind him closed with a heavy thud. For a brief moment only the natural illumination from Sollux’s own eyes cast any sort of light, before a single, dim bulb on the ceiling flicked on. It didn’t really help. A metal chair stood fixed in the middle of the room, and Sollux felt a prickle of fear skitter up his spine as he spotted manacles on the armrests and near the legs. “What kind of quiz--”

“Emotional endurance is the topic today,” Rapard said. He gestured towards the chair, one eyebrow arching up. “I don’t have all night, recruit.”

Sollux gritted his teeth, glancing from the chair to the door and back again. Rapard stood between him and the door, and somehow he doubted he could overpower a fully matured seadweller in such a cold environment. Sollux’s own limbs felt stiff, and his teeth already chattered. He had his pride, but he also had an ounce of self-preservation in his bones. He sat down in the chair, jerking away too slow to avoid the manacles snapping shut around his wrists and ankles.

  
  


“I get the physical training, I get the mediculler shit, but what the _fuck_ is up? Sir,” he added at the expression on Rapard’s face.

“How slow do I have to speak to drill something through your pan, recruit?” Rapard said, starting to pace, a shark circling through icy waters. “Welcome to emotional conditioning. The goal today is to learn control. The moment you emote, your quarry loses faith in your resolve to hurt them.” Rapard stopped off to Sollux’s left, shifting his weight from left to right before settling back on his heels. His expression remained as blank as ever. “This also serves as a practical demonstration of your schoolfeeding. Recap what you learned about temperature moderation and interrogation, grublet.”

Sollux took a breath, trying to settle the sparks already settling around his hornbeds that had triggered out of anxiety. “Temperature. Short-term temperature shifts out of habitable zones can lower reaction time and inhibitions. Long-term it can influence the immune system and wear a troll down.”

Rapard snorted, reaching into the breast pocket of his uniform and pulling out a small remote. He pressed a button, and fans lining the walls kicked on with a furious intensity. Sollux yelped, turning his face away from the sudden blast of cold air smacking against his face. “Temperature drop, two degrees,” Rapard said. “Watch those sparks-- I can read you like a fucking book. Get it together.” He started pacing again, and Sollux tried to resist the urge to follow his movements with his head. “What temperatures can the average lowblood withstand?”

“Average?” Sollux worried his lower lip with his teeth, scrambling to answer ahead of Rapard’s impatience. “Hypothermia takes place at an internal temperature of 97 degrees, and we can survive with an external temperature of 140 with enough water.”

The fans whirred again, and Sollux gritted his teeth. “Watch those ears,” Rapard said. “In the interrogatormentors, your emotions are a _weakness._ If you can’t turn them off like the husktop you are, then what use are you? You can’t be caught at the mercy of your own instincts.” He shook his head, still pacing in a wide circle around Sollux. “What will affect a lowblood’s internal temperature more, cold air or water?”

Sollux faltered, looking up to the fans. Well, that seemed like the proper answer right there. He couldn’t think straight, really, his thoughts coming to him in sluggish waves as he shivered in his bonds. A red light blinked in the corner of the room, a camera watching this entire affair. What did they even need this footage for? “Cold air,” he said finally.

Rapard hummed. “Interesting answer,” he said. “This isn’t about the immediate effect, this is a matter of thermodynamics.” An odd click came from above Sollux, and he looked up just in time for a set of freshly revealed nozzles protruding from the ceiling to unleash a deluge of icy water. Sollux sputtered, gasping and choking against the spray. The water left him a shuddering mess, each breath an agony stabbing into his lungs.

“I gffkfk- got it,” he said, coughing hard. “Cold. Cold’ssss good.” His lisp had worsened due to the chattering of his teeth, and he found himself biting his tongue more than once. “Fuck. _Fuck._ ”

The fans came to life again, and Sollux screwed his eyes shut. “You’re cursing out of an emotional response,” Rapard said. Sollux felt cold hands grasp his jaw, and he peeled his eyes open to meet the seadweller’s own. “Turn off your emotions, brat.”

Sollux took a breath as Rapard released him, schooling his response back. He tried focusing inwards, fixating on the thought of warmth, of his bunk and fresh food and summer nights. _Turn it off, turn it off, turn the emotions off, think of something else._ His expressioned slackened, smoothing out into an expressionless mask despite the way his muscles spasmed due to the cold.

The quizzing continued from there, and Sollux did his best to answer each question thrown at him. The temperature kept dropping despite his efforts, until he felt icicles gathering in his nose and his eyes felt swollen from how much tears streamed down his cheeks from the cold. The lesson continued even after Sollux started hacking blood onto his legs and the floor, his entire body quaking. He couldn’t hear his own voice. He didn’t even know what he said in response to Rapard’s questions, and he knew at least half of his answers were unintelligible. He couldnt even begin to imagine what warmth felt like anymore.

Eventually Rapard looked at his watch and hit another button, and the manacles around Sollux’s limbs popped open. Sollux couldn’t have moved if he tried, and it took careful prying and warm water to loosen him from his quite literal frozen position in the chair. Sollux struggled to remain conscious as Rapard swung him over his shoulder, gasping as they emerged into the relative heat of the outside corridors.

Rapard deposited Sollux into a communal block, into a flock of suffering recruits. To the left side of the room, where Sollux tumbled onto the ground, lowbloods clustered around each other in bundles of blankets, heated mats underneath them. To the right, highbloods all seemed intent on drowning themselves in ice baths. Sollux couldn’t bring himself to move, and remained face down until he felt a blanket settling around his shoulders.

“Hey, Sparkles,” said a weak voice above him. Sollux looked up to see Trisia, her face flushed a brilliant teal and her dreadlocks hanging limply around her cheeks. “You look like shit.”

Sollux let out a ragged laugh, fingers curling around the edges of the blanket. “You do too. Did they stick you guys into an oven?”

He heard shuffling behind him then, and a sniffle. “I want to die,” Ualona said, voice very small. “They didn’t warn us it’d be like this. We’re the interrogatormentors, not- Why are they torturing _us_?”

  
  


The door opened again, revealing a petite purple with a massive collar of spikes framing the back of her head like a matured daywalker. She pushed a stumbling Ophlia into the room, tittering and wiping a little smear of purple from the corner of her own mouth before shutting the door. Sollux caught a glimpse of the back of her neck then, which revealed that the spikes were indeed protruding from her skin in a uniform circles of daywalker bruises along her spine. When Ophlia lifted her head, Sollux saw her ear was bleeding. Sollux swore, shivering. “This place is fucked.”

Trisia got up again, and Sollux heard her murmuring to Ophlia before supporting her up to an ice bath. Ualona scooted closer, and Sollux saw an ominous darkness to his nose and the edges of his fingers. “What did Rapard promise you?” he said.

Sollux tried to think of what Ualona meant, but nothing came to him. He only shrugged, his cheek pressed up against the floor. “Nothing. But I'm not waiting to find out what you're talking about,” he said. “Let the others know.” He closed his eyes. “We’re getting out of here.”


	8. ERIDAN: Blood in the Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warning for incoming dubcon and drugging. The fic's getting bumped up from teen to mature as well after this point, because things are ramping up for both of these two.
> 
> the second and third images mark the beginning and end of the dubcon section if you wish to skip it

Eridan came to after an eternity of whirling darkness, lights prickling at his glassy eyes. He became aware of his torso first, throbbing with pain and slick with blood. Then his hands, stiff with something akin to rigor mortis before he realized someone had their lips pressed to his. 

Eridan blinked, bringing the world into blurry focus. His glasses had fallen somewhere on the floor. The Condesce gripped him by the collar, lifting him with one arm as she gripped his chin with the other. Eridan whined, the sound muffled by her cool lips. She pulled back. Maybe it was the delirium, but Eridan swore for a second her lips glowed.

"There we are, guppy," she said, long nails tracing along his jaw. "You didn't think I'd let a sweet thing like you go belly up, did you?"

Someone snorted behind him. The Empress pouted, wiping a bit of violet blood from her painted lips. "At ease, battery." She set Eridan down, keeping a firm grasp on his uniform when he wobbled. "Take a second to find your sea legs, that's it," she said, a croon lilting her voice like a song. 

Eridan finally stopped swaying, putting a hand just below his ribs. A look down revealed no wound, only three splotches of still-sticky violet blood underneath his torn uniform. "W-why--" He cleared his throat, swallowing as the Empress released him. Now that he saw her properly for the first time, _in person_ , he was terrified. She was massive, easily eight feet tall at the most conservative guess and dwarfing his paltry six, and that wasn’t even including the elegant pair of meticulously maintained horns atop her crown of massive, waving hair. Her horns were longer than any he’d ever seen, and his chin jutted up in meek submission on reflex. "M-My Empress, Glorious Radiance, Her Ever Resplendent and Imperious Condescension.” The words ran out in a nervous stream as he sought to placate whatever wrath lay in wait for him before he got ahold of himself. “Why did you let me live?"

The Empress walked past him to the door, waving her hand with an articulated swirl. Eridan followed her without conscious thought, as if tugged by a fishing line through the cheek. “Have some confishdence in your Empress, guppy. You were just an object lesson, I ain’t gonna let you swim with the fishes just yet.”

Eridan glanced behind him as he left after the Empress, looking back to the Helmsman. The Helmsman had changed since Eridan had first seen him, wrinkles smoothed out and gray hairs fading back to black. Eridan could have convinced himself he’d imagined the shrunken specter of a troll hanging in the wires, except for the light touch of tyrian paint to the old troll’s lips. Eridan reached to his own mouth, smearing away some lipstick from the corner of his own mouth and looking down to see fuschia. The Helmsman smiled, but his brows furrowed and betrayed a hint of resignation before his eyes faded back into the glazed sockets of a fresh corpse.

Eridan swallowed, turning back to the Empress. She swung her trident down in an absent arc, and Eridan flinched as the flats of the prongs pressed light against his back. “Let me mako it up to you, little one,” she said, heels echoing down the empty halls. “You really must be somethin’, making it all the way down here on your lonesome. What brought you to this lonely old place?”

Eridan’s fins flicked as he remembered the interrogatormentors, tucked against the crowd and circling in to separate him from the school of upper officers. “No reason,” he said, shoving his glasses up the bridge of his sweaty nose. “I, well, torpid- I mean, the Helmsman, he probably let you know I play poker with him, right?” A soft hum from the Condesce then, which Eridan took as a sign to continue. “So I… wanted to find and see him, that’s all.”

“Interesting.” The Condesce placed a finger onto a wall panel, her immaculate expression faltering for the briefest moment before pulling away. Eridan saw a needle retract back into the wall, and the Empress shook away a small bead of blood as the door in front of them opened. “Now where did a nosy little Head Admin get that kind of security clearance, I wonder?”

Eridan balked on the entrance of the room, dark and lined with shelves and looming shapes. The trident pressed him onward. “I- No it was just a chatroom or- fuck I didn’t- He said he asked to see me anyways!”

The Empress laughed, louder and more boisterous than Eridan expected out of royalty. “Shush, I’m pullin’ your leg, shelly little thing!” She pressed her hand to another hidden panel, and soft lights rose from ceiling lights with lamp shades that cast the room in a fuschia glow.

Eridan looked around, unable to help his jaw dropping. The Empress had the biggest collection of soporifics he’d ever seen, shapes and bottles indicating centuries of workmanship. There were a few reclining platforms, and even a pailing platform tucked behind a folding screen that Eridan pretended not to see. “Why-”

“You really are talkative, aint’cha?” The Empress pulled a bottle down from a shelf, a purple liquid swirling with silvery glitter. 

Eridan swallowed back a retort, that he’d barely managed a handful of words since quite literally getting stabbed to near-death. “I suppose,” he said instead, arms folded behind him in military stiffness.

The Empress grabbed two glasses, pouring out a healthy measure of soporific into each. Her long nails were so long that they fell into the cascading flow of the soporific from the bottle. She handed a glass to Eridan, ushering him to a chaise lounge and draping herself across the opposite end. “Loosen up, guppy,” she said, leaning her trident against the wall. She leaned her head in her hand, watching him with laser focus until he took a tentative sip of his drink. The soporific went down smooth, with only the faintest burn softened by fruity notes. “There we go.”

Eridan looked down into his glass, watching the glitter swirl within before taking a deeper sip. “Sorry,” he said. “I don’t exactly get stabbed everyday.” He chose his words carefully, avoiding directing any blame towards the Empress. “I need a minute.”

“Of course.” The Empress took a long draft from her own glass, prompting Eridan to copy the amount she drank.

Once he drained his glass to half-empty, Eridan found himself sprawling a bit where he sat, losing most of his decorum. The stress from the day no doubt contributed to how fast he lost himself so fast. “Sorry,” he said, slurring a bit. “Don’t meanna… don’t mean t’be all… jusss… jus’ a mess.”

The Empress moved closer, leaning in to catch Eridan’s drooping jaw on the edges of her claws. “Hush, sweetgills,” she said, the sing-song croon returning to her voice. “I ain’t mad. You were just curious, weren’t’cha?”

“Uh-huh.” Eridan nodded so hard he felt his head threaten to roll right off his spine. He swayed back, running his tongue over his teeth. “Yeah. Never seen a helmsman or nothin’ b’fore. ‘Specially not a nice one. Mine’s a fuckin’ bastard.”

“Do you pity him?” The nails traced along his cheek, a burning left in their wake. Eridan felt a trickle of blood drip down his skin, but didn’t care. That should’ve been his first clue. He watched her hand go, and it occurred to him that the Empress had an odd sheen of white glitter coating her index finger’s nail, which she wiped off with her thumb as he watched.

“No,” he said. “Yeah? I ‘unno, jus’, feel bad for him or ssssthhh- somethin’. He’s nice t’talk to.”

“Oh, I bet.” Soft fingers ran along the fresh cut in his skin, a soft warmth left behind as the skin knitted back together. “I bet a lotta people confide in you, honey. You got one of those faces.”

Eridan shook his head again, wobbling enough that the Empress caught him from falling forward. She moved him into her lap, carding her fingers through his hair. Eridan felt tears well up in his eyes. “Nooooo,” he said, voice teetering on the edge of a wail. “Nobody ‘cept you.”

“Oh, sweetie, don’t cry.” The Empress put a hand to the back of Eridan’s head, tucking him into her neck. Eridan took in a shuddering breath, pheromones rising from the Empress’ skin sending him into a heady spiral. “Shhhhh. What do you mean, pupa?”

Eridan heard some part of himself fighting, trapped in his own pan and screaming about drugging, a hazy cloud that clamored somewhere deep in his thinkpan, but he couldn’t find it himself to listen as the Empress played with and then undid a few of the buttons of his uniform jacket. “I- I don’t-”

“Shhhh. I’ll stop if you want. Don’t you wanna feel betta?”

Did this constitute as better? He let out a stuttering breath as she ran a finger along his gills, eyes fluttering a bit. This was better than being dead or seeing the interrogatormentors coming after him any night.

“Yeah.”

There were brief flashes of thoughts that caught his attention when his mind slipped away from the unfolding scene; her glittering claw, how it had only gone into _his_ glass, how one glass shouldn’t have fucked him up as much as he was. A slow, resigned despair filled him after a while, drowning out his racing thoughts. What was he going to do? This was the _Empress_. Her voice cut through his murky thoughts.

“So open up, little clam, there we go.”

Eridan rocked a bit, threatening to fall back until the Empress caught him again. He couldn’t fight her. He couldn’t do anything. All he could do was try and save his own skin. “All my friends, the fuckin’- the fuckin’ _nobodies_ , all of ‘em dumped me in the fuckin’ dirt ‘cause I didn’t wan’ nnnnng-” He hiccuped, a bitter taste rising in the back of his mouth. The Empress kept undoing his shirt, practiced and gentle as she exposed his chest. Eridan kept babbling on. “I didn’t wanna… they didn’t take me seriously or nothin’, they were like… playin’ some sorta stupid game with everyone’s lives or whatever.”

The Empress pulled back a bit, her mask of gentle softness briefly flashing with an edge of annoyance. “I’m bailin’ if you’re talking about some silly little FLARPing games, pupa.”

Eridan shook his head, whole body vibrating. “No no no no, uh- ‘cept I played with my ex a bit, this sssss- ain’t that.” His voice lowered, and the Empress’ fins pricked forward to hear. “They wanted to rebel.” He felt his gut twist up, that small part of him still screaming, but something in the Empress’ dewy eyes had the words spilling out of him like blood gushing from his throat. 

The Empress flipped him suddenly, onto his back, and Eridan wheezed as she pinned him down by his shoulders and straddled him. 

  
  
  


Eridan didn’t know whether to piss himself out of fear or feel very, very aroused. Something warm happened between his legs, and it felt a bit too wiggly for the former. If he had anything that resembled mental faculties at that moment, he’d be embarrassed at how easy he must’ve seemed. But there was something else at work here and he felt like he was in _danger_. 

“Interesting,” the Empress said, drawing the word out into what sounded like sixteen syllables to his addled mind. “Rebel? Do tell.”

Eridan opened his mouth, but squeaked as the Empress settled her weight with maddening friction. “Oh,” he breathed, his cheeks heating up as his fins pricked forward attentively. “What?” He came to himself a bit, icy prongs of fear slicing into his gut. He was right. There _was_ something else going on here. “No, I, I didn’t meant that- mmmmean that. I was just… jokin’.”

“Come on. That ain’t a joke, pupa, you’re gonna give me a right scare like that.”

“No, hones’,” Eridan said. 

The annoyance returned to the Empress’ face, this time staying fixed in place. “God, that’s a dead end, huh?” She slapped his face, lightly, before brushing her fingers along Eridan’s sensitive neckgills again. Eridan shivered, arching his back and moaning, but couldn’t accomplish more than a tiny, incoherent apology. “Pathetic.” The Empress’ hand drifted down to Eridan’s, rubbing a thumb along his knuckles before focusing in on a finger. A white bolt of pain jolted through Eridan’s body from his hand, and he screamed as the Empress ripped the nail back and up and _away_ , leaving behind an empty, bleeding nail bed. “Try again.”

“What?” Eridan blinked rapidly, choking back a sob. “Why’re you doing this?”

“Simple, guppy,” the Empress said. Her face had fallen into vague disinterest, and she didn’t even flinch as Eridan shrieked when she tore away another nail. “The surprise is over, seein’ as ya no doubt spotted the interrogatormentors.” She sighed, flicking the nail into a corner and licking the violet blood from her finger. “Some things ya just gotta do yourself, y’know?” She leaned forward, pinning Eridan down by the throat. “Start spillin’, pupa.”

So Eridan spilled. Nonsense at first, whatever he hoped would appease the Condesce. How he sometimes cheated hours, making it look like they were on labor just so he could make sure everyone got their fair share. How Shakes would take long breaks to avoid helming too much and he let him, how the captain let shore leave last an extra few days and Eridan turned a blind eye. Every time he started on a tangent the Empress ripped away another nail, or bit deep into his throat until he felt on the verge of bleeding out.

By the time he’d gotten to his latest thread, Eridan could barely think. He blacked out for minutes at a time, only to find himself woken by soporifics poured into his throat until he choked and almost drowned. “Mmnnnkinda got a bit fed up with the Empr- Emmmmmpire for a bit,” he said, coughing hard from his latest dousing. His mouth and nose burned. He felt bile in his throat, and he guessed he’d probably thrown up at some point. Somewhere along the way he’d lost all his clothes. The Empress had started undoing her own wetsuit, but Eridan couldn’t focus on her bare skin to save his life. He couldn’t really focus on anything. The world was a flood of colorful blurs that made his eyes burn, and he blinked back tears as pain stabbed his temples.

“Everyone does, everyone does,” The Empress said, bored. “Tell me somethin’ new.”

“Well I, I gotta… Gott- Got in with some rebels, right?”

“Mmmhm. Got names for me?”

“Yeah, yeah… Some. I don’t know all their real names.”

“That’s okay, just spit them out already.”

Eridan hesitated for one moment, and then screamed as the Empress bit a chunk clean out of his fin. He sobbed, shaking, leaning into the soft hand that cradled his jaw. “Okay, okay,” he said, spine tingling as a hand slid over his grubscars in a way that dimmed the pain of his fin to a dull throb. “Mmmmn. Uh- I can write a list.”

“No need,” the Empress said. “Helmsman?”

“Here as always, my Esteemed Empress,” said a flat drone from a speaker in the wall. “What must I do for you?”

“Take notes, battery. This little morsel has some info he’d like to share.”

A heavy sigh then, the speaker rattling. “Of course. Transcribing now.”

Eridan gave all the usernames he could remember. CentaursTesticle, grimAuxiliatrix, arsenicCatnip, apocalypseArisen. AdiosToreador, twinArmageddons. A few names he did have. “You gotta… You gotta promise you won’t do nothin’,” he said, slurring to the point of intelligibility. Hatred at their betrayal, their dismissal of him as they threw him to the howlbeasts, still gnawed at his gut. Yet Eridan couldn’t bring himself to want them to die. 

“Of course, cuttlefish,” the Empress said. She smoothed her hands down Eridan’s hips, and Eridan made a soft gasp, shivering under her touch. “I’ve got you.”

“Promise?”

“Promise. I wouldn’t ever hurt you if I didn’t need to.”

Eridan nodded, shaky. The world spun around him, and he felt like throwing up again. “Think… I think twin whatever...No, don’t know his name. Know... know fffuckin’ Kar... made fun’a him. Name he couldn’ even say. Fuckin’ lisp’r somethin’. Dumbass.”

“TwinArmageddons,” the Helmsman’s lisping voice said from the speaker. He sounded sad for some reason. “Currently the Helmsman of the _BC Starskimmer Arisen_ , helming code A1A100, former name Sollux Captor, Gemini signclass.”

“Oh,” Eridan said. “You know everybody?”

“Just him.”

“Useless, aren’t you?” the Empress said, clicking her tongue.

“I aim to please, Empress,” the Helmsman said.

The Empress looked down at the squirming violet between her legs again. “Got any different names?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Eridan coughed, trying to choke down the bile rising up again. The little part of him that realized the depravity of what was happening to him still demanded to be known, but another part of him went back to old fantasies about his romanticized ideas of Feferi. In his drugged haze he latched onto that thought for his own sake. “Karrrr… Karkat Vantas. Uh, he’s a mutant.”

The Empress cocked her head. “A mutant, you say?” Her eyes glittered as she leaned in. “What was his last name, again?”

“Vantas.”

“Interesting. Continue.”

“Ummm.” Eridan tried to speak again, but failed until a hand between his legs convinced him otherwise. “ _Oh._ Mmmm. Eq... Eqi....? No, shit. Sweat fuckin’ blueblood bastard… Mmm, Vriska Serket, ffffor sure. Fuckin’… Bitch. Gamzee Makara, too.” He didn’t want to think about the agonizing pain of his torn up fin, didn’t want to think about the blood seeping into his collar. He’d much rather focus on the soft and gentle touches, desperate to feel anything but pain. “Fffef- Feferi. Feferi Peixes. That’s… That’s all I got. Don’t givvv… give a _fuck_ about the lowbloods. Dime a...” He wet his lips, his throat dry as cotton. “... Dime a ffffuckin’ dozen.”

The Empress’ manicured brows shot up into her hairline. “Peixes? The plot thickens.” She leaned back, tapping a finger to her chin. “Helmsman, tell Interrogatormentor Ritoly to hail the _Starskimmer._ I want to see what they’ve got. This one’s dried out.” She gestured down.

“Yes, Empress.”

“Can you schedule a massage in an hour too? Neyfri this time, not Bellal. I need a rougher touch tonight.”

“Already in your schedule. Are you going to kill the boy?”

“Mmm, maybe. But if I don’t, conchsider it a favor you owe me.” 

“Of course. I am unworthy of your grace.”

“Damn right.” Her eyes drifted slowly down Eridan’s form, and she hummed, contemplatively, running her hand down his chest. “Though I suppose the buoy deserves a little somefin for bein’ obedient enough. Didn’ even need to toss his bass at the interrogatormentors ‘foar he glubbed. And he _is_ cute enough for a fresh molt. I seappose ya got some taste in your bony bass after all, Helmsman.”

Eridan’s eyes had closed by this point, head tipping to the side. He didn’t even hear her words now. His entire body throbbed in time to his pulse, mutilated fingers twitching where his hand dangled off the edge of the couch. The smell of her heady pheromones stood out him in that moment when things started to blur beyond what he could keep track of. So he stopped trying to keep track of it, instead just pliantly doing whatever she wanted. Maybe if she killed him he wouldn’t have to worry about thinking at all.

That’d be a mercy, he thought.

 

 

  
  


 

Eridan woke hours later, head still spinning. After fighting and promptly losing the battle with his vestibular senses, he leaned over on the reclining platform and vomited, a cough petering out into a thready whine. He didn’t see the Condesce anywhere in the now darkened room, spiking relief and terror through his gut in equal measure. A sense of disappointment sank deep in his chest, a mournful ache. He tried not to think about it.

He wiped his mouth, but paused with his hand in front of him. His nails had regrown. Or had they never left? His head hurt. Eridan shook his head, pulling his clothes on. He fell over twice trying to put on his pants, and stayed with his cheek pressed to the cool floor for a few minutes each time, only moving when his thoughts started to catch up to him.

If there was anything Eridan didn’t want to do right now, it was ponder how exactly he’d been twisted into turning on the people he’d once called his friends. The Condesce had barely done anything to him at all and he’d given her everything he knew. Shame bubbled in him as he thought of Karkat and how disappointed he’d be. As he thought of Feferi, the first person he’d ever called a friend and who he had once wanted to share something _more_. The feelings might have burnt out now, tempered by reality and bitterness and realization that he wasn’t the best quad, but he still missed her sometimes, during the lonely, sleepless days when he yearned for someone to talk to about even the most pointless things. Now the idea of thinking of talking to her was almost tainted with how easily he’d sold her out to the biggest threat on her life.

But, he thought dimly, did it really matter anymore? He didn’t have any contact with them now. He didn’t have any more intel on them, didn’t have anything to hide anymore. He’d been candid in the end about everything he knew. And now he didn’t _want_ to know anything else. Something had been planted in him, a seed of doubt, a seed of misery and loathing that grew with every miserable happenstance that seemed to fall right on his lap. So what if he gave the Empress their names, their trollhandles? So what if he’d sold them out? So what if they were on the hot-seat for once instead of him? He’d...

Thinking hurt his head too much. Then and there he decided to stop laying around and thinking and get to somewhere he didn’t feel so vulnerable. The whole ordeal of moving seemed to easily drown out the basic functions of his thinkpan anyways, so it was a win-win situation to haul ass.

As Eridan left the confines of the Empress’s private chambers, he heard no more rusty singing on his way back through the bowels of the ship, no laughter or voices or the tinkling of glasses from the main gathering hall. He stumbled his way back to the _Reichenbach_ in the hangar, one hand pressed to the wall to keep himself steady. The memories of what had just happened slipped through his fingers like water, and every echo of thought or feeling sent conflicted twinges up his spine. He passed a few servants and techies, lowbloods mostly, who stared after him as he passed. Their voices swam over him, crashing against abandoned shores.

Eridan tripped on the way into the Reichenbach, ankle twisting on the way down. He let out a soft whimper, nails scrabbling against the metal floor beneath him. Strong hands lifted him. Murmuring. Faster voices, frantic. Eridan’s head lolled forward before he stumbled forward, out of the grip of whoever held him up. He grunted as he hit the hull of the ship, lips pulled back in a snarl. He splayed both hands against it, pushing himself off it and wobbling, arms waving as he tried to keep his balance. He squinted at the blurry, rushing images of the world around him, unable to make any sense of it all. He promptly doubled over, dry-heaving, feeling like he was dying. Once the convulsions stopped, he pulled himself back up, stumbling until his back hit the wall once again.

“Shhhhhhrt- Stop it. D’n’ fffffuckin’ touch me. Mmmy’r superirr… fuckin’ ‘fficer,” he said, gesturing wildly. “Prob’ly. Goin’... to ‘coon. G’mornin’.” He fell forward again, almost flat on his face until someone caught him with a grunt. 

Despite his protests, Eridan didn’t fight whoever started dragging him onward. He bared his teeth for show, snapping at the air and growling in his throat like a wounded animal. He stumbled, boots scuffing against the floor. “I know, I know, you’re a big buff shark ready to punch a hole through my skin,” the voice of the troll beside him said. “Hey, someone get a platform ready for the Head Admin in the medbay, something’s up.”

“Noooooo. Wanna go ‘coon,” Eridan said. He managed to sink his teeth into the troll’s arm, growling half-heartedly as the other troll yelped. He might not have been in his right mind, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to stand for being manhandled into going to the medbay.

“Okay, okay,” the troll said. “Holy shit.”

The last thing Eridan remembered after that was his own room, dim shadows that brought him a wave of comfort. He didn’t go to his recuperacoon, instead sinking down onto his reclining platform. “Mmm. You can go. I cnn… get in myself.” The troll left. Eridan almost wondered who he was, before slipping away again into blissful unconsciousness.


End file.
